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Poetry On Fire by J. L. Clayton, Centerville, OH (2026)

This is testimony, not performance. Language as permission-Truth with a pulse.

05/09/2026

Poem to my Mama on Mother’s Day 2026

Heaven Already Knew

by Jay Clayton

She dreamed of four before the vows were even sealed,
Before she knew what Heaven’s hidden hands concealed.
A young bride standing innocent beneath the light,
Unaware what destiny would form that night.

She could not see the roads her children one day tread,
The storms they’d face, the tears that later would be shed.
Yet something holy moved beyond what eyes could see,
And built a living legacy through all four seeds.

Rhonda arrived with fire already in her veins,
A soul designed to stand through pressure, loss, and pain.
She carried strength the way the sunrise carries dawn,
Still rising fierce each time the darker nights moved on.

There are some hearts born leaders long before they speak,
A quiet power living steady underneath.
And Rhonda walked with that same current from the start,
A blazing will wrapped in devotion and in heart.

Then Kendra came, unshaken by the coldest rain,
A soul acquainted early on with silent pain.
Yet even loneliness could never make her bend,
For strength became the closest thing she knew as friend.

She learned to stand when standing felt the hardest thing,
To build her peace without depending on a wing.
And though the road at times left shadows in her view,
She carried iron where a softer spirit grew.

Then Jay arrived beneath a deeper, sacred sign,
A seeker born with truth and fire intertwined.
A voice designed to turn both suffering into art,
And pull hidden meaning from the ruins of the heart.

Some souls are born already listening for the call,
Already sensing something greater through it all.
And through the wounds, the visions, questions left behind,
Still walked a light that could not fully be confined.

Then Jana came, the steady pillar of the ground,
A calming force when chaos tried to gather round.
She held the kind of strength that does not need display,
The quiet earth that helps a family find its way.

Where others burned or drifted searching through the storm,
She carried steadiness that helped the roots stay warm.
A sacred balance formed through patience, grace, and care,
The type of love still felt when no one sees it there.

Four different fires burning from a single source,
Four different callings, each a necessary force.
And though each one could walk alone and find their way,
Together is the ground where family learns to stay.

Forgiveness isn’t easy, it was never meant to be,
But love that’s real will always choose to set the other free.
And if the love is true, the weight begins to fade,
For what was broken in the blood was in the blood remade.

And you, dear Mother, though so young upon that day,
Could never know the lives that waited in your wake.
Yet Heaven trusted you to bring these spirits through,
Because somewhere eternity already knew.

You held the fire. You carried it. You did not fold.
And what you gave was worth more than the world can hold.
Before the names. Before the vows. Before the day—
Heaven already knew your hands would make a way.

© 2026 Jay Clayton. All rights reserved.

05/07/2026

Marked
by Jay Clayton

I remember storms behind your careful eyes,
The truth we buried under practiced lies.
I held each silence like a sacred flame,
And loved you still through every shift and change.

I remember doors half-open in the night,
Old wounds disguised as laughter, soft and light.
The way we broke yet never fully fell,
Still tethered close by stories we don’t tell.

I remember every promise left unsaid,
The trembling weight of words we came to dread.
Yet through the ruin, through the ache and weather,
Some hearts are marked to carry all forever.

© 2026 J. L. Clayton All Rights Reserved.

04/10/2026

You must see what I’m doing

By Jay Clayton

You should be ashamed of all you chose to do,
The wreckage still lives on because of you.
Old wounds were carved, then handed down through years,
Still feeding broken homes with rage and tears.

A human fracture, deep and running wide,
A shattered family truth was pushed aside.
By lies and schemes that others set in place,
Then dared to mask the damage with a face.

You may not see the truth inside this fight,
So I am here to drag it to the light.
Not whisper soft, not dressing up the flame,
But standing tall and calling this by name.

I’m not in court for ego, wealth, or greed,
I’m there because protection is a need.
For every life that corporate hands conceal,
I stand to show exactly what is real.

If you can’t see it, if you cannot feel,
Then back up now, because I am the real.
I did not come to bend, retreat, or kneel,
I came to prove the wound, expose, and heal.

© 2026 J. L. Clayton All Rights Reserved.

04/07/2026

Before the Night Falls

by Jay Clayton

We gather in a world that feels heavier than before,
A trembling in the silence we can’t quite ignore.
Not one of us untouched by what is shifting in the air,
A quiet kind of knowing that we’re all already there.

It isn’t just our burdens that we carry in our chest,
It’s something far more ancient that won’t give our spirits rest.
A thread between all living things, unseen but always true,
A weight that grows within us in the things we say and do.

For every tear that falls somewhere is never truly alone,
It travels through the unseen places deep within our soul.
The grief of one becomes the ache another feels at night,
A shared and silent current moving just beyond our sight.

And somewhere far beyond these walls where we are standing still,
There are hearts that beat in terror against another’s will.
There are mothers holding children as the ground beneath them shakes,
There are prayers that never finish, from the ones who never wake.

No soul was made to carry loss delivered hand to hand,
No life was meant to end this way by forces we command.
And yet across this fragile world that suffering appears,
A rising tide of sorrow year…
by year…
by year…

And still we call it distant, still we say it’s not our own,
As if the pain outside of us won’t echo through our home.
But every life that’s taken leaves a fracture in us all,
A breaking of something sacred every time another falls.

Because the mind we think is ours was never ours alone,
It’s shaped by every whisper and every truth we’ve known.
A field of living consciousness that stretches through the world,
A current running through us—every man…
boy…
and girl…

But when it turns toward mercy, when it softens into grace,
You can feel it shift the atmosphere of every single place.
It reaches into every soul and leaves a lasting trace.

So maybe what is happening is not just fate or chance,
But something calling all of us to wake up from this trance.
Not later, not tomorrow, not when everything feels right—
But now, before the weight of it consumes another night.

Because no war has ever lived where love was fully known,
No hatred can survive where true compassion has been shown.
And every second we ignore the power in our breath,
We inch a little closer to a world that mirrors death.

But there is still a turning that can happen even now,
A moment of decision not in words, but in the how.
In how we choose to see each other, how we choose to stand,
In how we reach beyond ourselves and finally understand.

That we are not divided like we’ve been taught to believe,
We carry one another in the wounds we cannot leave.
And if enough of us remember what we know is true,
Then something in this world can shift in everything we do.

So when the clock strikes eight tonight, don’t let it pass you by,
Stand still within the silence—lift your heart, your voice, your cry.
Not out of fear, but something deeper, something fierce and true,
A call for life, for mercy, for the world to make it through.

Send it out beyond the noise, beyond the fear and fight,
Send it where all things are held, beyond the edge of sight.
Call it God or call it Source, the name is not the key—
It’s the truth behind the reaching that will set something free.

Because if we are connected in the way we feel we are,
Then what we send together doesn’t fade, it doesn’t scar.
It moves through every boundary no human hand has drawn—
And maybe, just maybe… it becomes a turning point before the dawn.

© 2026 J. L. Clayton — All Rights Reserved.

04/05/2026

My thoughts are with all on this Easter Morn. A celebration of one man’s death so all our sins are atoned.

He Still Rose

by Jay Clayton

They placed their burdens in their hands, in stone, in silent prayer,
And walked them to the doorway like He wasn’t already there.
I watched the weight inside their eyes, the quiet, hidden ache,
The kind no ritual can carry, no simple act can take.

For sorrow doesn’t leave because we set it on a shelf,
And healing isn’t found in things we hand to something else.
It lives inside the breaking, in the places we avoid,
In every wound we’ve covered up, in every truth destroyed.

And I thought of Him that morning, long before the rising sun,
Not crowned in gold or glory, but condemned, already done.
No stone to hold His suffering, no doorway to escape,
Just nails and thorns and silence—and a world that turned away.

They say He carried everything, the sorrow and the sin,
But no one talks about the cost of letting that begin.
To stand inside the darkness and not turn your eyes aside,
To feel the weight of all of it—and choose to stay, not hide.

No symbol held His agony, no ritual made it light,
He didn’t set it down somewhere and walk away from fight.
He walked it through completely, every breath, each tear, each scar,
And showed us what it means to face the truth of who we are.

So what is resurrection if we never truly break?
If we just move our burdens round, but never truly wake?
If we perform the motions but refuse to feel the cost,
Then what was ever found at all—and what was truly lost?

Because the rising wasn’t magic, wasn’t sudden, wasn’t clean,
It came from deepest suffering this world has ever seen.
It came from full surrender, from the darkest, final breath,
From looking at the end of all—and walking straight through death.

And maybe that’s the message that we’re meant to understand,
Not something we can place away, or hold within our hand.
But something we must walk through, something we must feel,
A truth that asks us to be broken—so something else can heal.

Because He didn’t rise to prove that pain will disappear,
He rose to show that even pain can’t keep us buried here.
That even in the silence, when it feels like all is gone,
There’s something still within us that is waiting to come on.

So let the stone stay where it is, don’t dress it up as grace,
The real work isn’t leaving—it’s what we choose to face.
It’s standing in the breaking without turning from the cost,
And finding in that moment that we were never lost.

Because the tomb was never meant to be the final word,
And truth was never silenced just because it wasn’t heard.
The same power that raised Him still moves beneath the skin,
Not out there in the distance—but alive and waking within.

So if you feel the weight today, don’t rush to set it down,
Don’t hide it in a ritual or dress it in a crown.
Just stand there in its presence, let it speak, let it be known—
Because resurrection doesn’t happen… till you face it on your own.

© 2019 J. L. Clayton All Rights Reserved.

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